Ep 4: Ex Machina
Screen Testing
English - April 21, 2017 05:00 - 57 minutes - 55.7 MBTechnology TV & Film films movies quality television testing Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
How do you measure humanity? We go deep into spoilers for Ex Machina as we recap Bluebook's work to produce a robot that can pass as a human.
In a reference-filled episode, we talk about the challenges of passing (or manipulating) a Turing Test, we debate the ethics of creating sentient machines, and compare the "planning/interview/debrief" structure of the film against how we approach our testing sessions.
As we proceed, we get distracted by discussions about the capabilities of helicopters, we wonder how a CEO can run a business from a location with no mobile coverage, investigate whether Nathan has already succeeded in creating the perfect dancing robot, and discover a film connection which sends Dan into uncontrollable laughter.
We also subject Siri and Google Home to their own Turing Test. It doesn't go well.
Testing conferences and initiatives mentioned during the introduction:
Neil's blog post about TestBash Brighton 2017 Brighton tester meetup - 19 April (where Dan presented this week) Brighton tester meetup - 24 May (where Neil is presenting) Let's Test (Sweden /South Africa) 2017 I T.A.K.E. Unconference 2017, Bucharest (where Dan is presenting a keynote) Nordic Testing Days 2017, Tallinn List of testing and agile conferences which are (and aren't) #PayToSpeak Rob Lambert - Blazingly Simple Guide To Submitting To Conferences Speak EasyOther references in the episode:
Homecoming (audio drama podcast) starring Oscar Isaac, Catherine Keener and David Schwimmer YouTube: Oscar Isaac as Officer Fartman in Lenny The Wonder Dog Wikipedia: Official Secrets Act TV Tropes: "As You Know" (when two characters discuss something they both already know, for the benefit of the audience) Wikipedia: Turing Test YouTube: Benedict Cumberbatch's celebrity impressions Screengrab of Neil's chatbot experience with BT FiveThirtyEight: The Man vs The Machine (short film about Kasparov vs Deep Blue, and Deep Blue's bug which led to victory) YouTube: The Simpsons - Introduction to Hank Scorpio YouTube: The IT Crowd - Jen's interview (ending with "Standard Nerds") Wikipedia: Socratic Method YouTube: Nathan and Kyoko's dance scene from Ex Machina
A big Terminator-style thumbs-up to Bad Puns and Machine Guns for their shout-out in their recent "Aftermath" episode!
Screen Testing will return in two weeks' time, as Gem Hill joins us to discuss 2016's NERVE (available now on Netflix and other streaming services).
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Intro music: Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - Enola Gay
Outro music: Oliver Cheatham - Get Down Saturday Night